


|kintsugi|

by littlekaracan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Acquire Contacts, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Gen, Grab Commander Off Empire, Join Grandpadawan's Rebellion, O66 Happens The Same Way But Obi Is Far Less Here For It, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Planet Tatooine (Star Wars), That's About What His Day Is Shaping Up To Be.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27337573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlekaracan/pseuds/littlekaracan
Summary: Obi-Wan Falls, but it feels more like finding his footing. It feels more like a natural part of stitching up a wound. It’s a gentle pressure all around him, almost like the arms of someone familiar enveloping him. It’s always been him, the flame has always lived in him, the ability to heal with aching determination, the near-spiteful perseverance through the least likely of odds, the ferocious fight against time and opportunity. It comes onto him, fuller with each breath, angrier with each heartbeat, angry for all he wasn’t allowed to despair for, angry for every life lost and every heart broken, every dream shattered and every hope crushed.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 93





	|kintsugi|

**Author's Note:**

> something to get nano started! i'm planning to wrap up three other sw fics, so, if the best case scenario hits, i don't want this one rotting in the background, im kinda proud of it, haha. i hope you enjoy Pain!

It comes to Ben, the thought, as he sits by the fire and watches the swirling sand. The vortex is almost as thick as fluid, teetering on the edge where the light of the flame meets the dark of the night.

It is a peculiar one. The old ghost stays away as if it knows he's in deep thought, and the moons are out but not bright enough to reach him.

He watches the fire. He sees old images. He says Remembrances. In Mando'a.

_Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc._

They come easily to his tongue. Enough years have passed for the language to feel natural, it's seen enough use in his life, in gardens and gunships and applications of secret codes alike.

 _Ni partayli, gar darasuum._ 1

Most nights, the words remind him of his men.

He was once a war general. He is not proud of it, never proud of it. He can't be. He's never been a man of cruelty. He remembers them still, however, as his days of glory. It’s undeniable. Not because of the army he led. Not because of the tactics he proposed which brought them one success after another. Not because of the very real possibility that, if the War hadn’t been orchestrated to rip them apart since the very start, they would've won.

_Waxer. Boil. Gregor. Longshot._

No. Those were the good days because of the lives he saved. Those were the good days because he managed to make himself useful. Those were the good days because he knew what was right and what was wrong, and because betrayal hadn't yet scorched him. Because he didn't yet second-guess every moment he gave someone his trust. Because of all the pain he managed to ease, even if in passing, because of all the hands that had slowly stopped shaking when he took them in his and spoke gentle words, because of all the cups of tea he made in pairs, because, back then, when he saw someone's tears, he could step up and dry them off.

He never does his own, when they fall hot and heavy into the cooling sands. 

The story of the War is one of tragedy. He does not miss it. But the nostalgia hurts in a catharsis that forces him to treasure the memories.

_Satine._

Ben longs for peace. He’s always longed for peace, before this name, before the end of the War. This, after all, is not peace. It is only endless suffering, unthinkable anguish, unyielding terror all across the Galaxy.

He would’ve taken the infinite sadness the Force always told him he was meant for. He would’ve taken the infinite sadness, if only it took him exclusively in turn. Not his entire world. Not his men, not those he loved, not his parents and siblings and friends and children. If it hadn’t plunged the entire Galaxy into despair, into a pit that was meant to be clawed out of by their children. By their _children_ , whom they will have to willingly sacrifice to years upon years of fighting equally as horrible as the memories that plague him each night.

Ben should not have it. Ben will _not_ have it.

But it is the will of the Force, something persistent in him whispers. You may not fight against it. You may not deny it. You may only try, and there is no try.

_Maul. Dooku. Ventress._

Those who fight too viciously against the Force are destined to become it. 

But are all living things not?

It comes not as an afterthought, but as something from within. Something true to him, something hidden. It comes as a jerk of his subconscious, natural curiosity intrinsic to him and not against his Code that’s really not binding him anymore either way. It comes to him as a conclusion to all his fears, to all his doubts, and it comes in the form of a question, a chain dropping in the pile with the rest of the dogmas he’s shed so far -

He remembers them anyway, does he not? No matter how horrible they were, what atrocities they committed. He remembers how angry the sparks flew when he first crossed blades with a saberstaff as a Padawan, how tricky double-sabers were to avoid but how perversely amusing was the banter surrounding them, how quickly the smooth gyes of Makashi infuriated him. 

They should be forgotten. The memories of fighting and the stench of blood and scorching flesh buried. The remnants of his anger and shame and, in spite of all, silent satisfaction at a battle won - all of it should be locked away in the dimmest corners of his brain.

They are. He made sure of it. And yet he remembers them still.

How could he not? Why would he not?

_Bruck. Cerasi. Qui-Gon._

Those three always end up together, no matter how hard he tries to tear them apart - they were such different people. It never works. A reminder not to let himself be overtaken by hatred. A reminder not to love where the path is overgrown with impossible thorns and undeniable failure. A reminder not to care so deeply that a single severed tie would break him, take him apart, dent him so deeply that the wound would never heal. They go together. They keep him together.

They kept him together. But the people are dead. The people are gone, in the Force, and when he sees them again...

What will he tell them? He does not know. He will not speak, only hang his head and march. Just another one of his failures, but what he fails at most of all is seeing the reason.

_Aayla._

Why are things this way? Why is he here, wandering pointlessly, waiting to pass the mantle of war and loss and unfulfillment onto a child? Why is he waiting here, to die quietly, to be gone like a gust of the wind, when he knows he could change things? Perhaps not enough, perhaps not more than he is meant for, but has he never baffled anyone? Has he never exceeded expectations, one way or another, has he never heard something being called impossible and risen to the challenge, dragged it down to his feet and dismantled the myth of hopelessness?

He has. He must. He will. He cannot let loss claim him. Holding on when the foundation of the world is cracking beneath him has always been his strength, it must continue to be his strength. This is not letting go, he tells himself. This is rising.

_Luminara._

A Jedi is kind. A Jedi is compassionate. A Jedi is true to the Force.

Kindness is not letting the suffering go on. Compassion is not waiting to force a child into a way of war, no matter how powerful.

What does the Force tell him?

The Force is silent. To be true to himself, then. The choice is his. The choice has always been his. He just never considered it, too caught up in quasi-religious devotion to misunderstood scriptures, too willing to search for the answers he wanted to find and not the ones he needed, too naive in his belief that a picture-perfect example would be enough to handle the mess within. He was ready to face the world he knew, but he didn’t adapt quickly enough.

_Bant._

The best time for it was the War. He should’ve been more cunning, he should’ve been more willing to act, he shouldn’t have waited so long to realize his hope of victory was futile.

The next best time is right now, standing under Ghomrassen, Guermessa and Chenini as the light blazes from the fire. To draw it into himself so viciously, the Light, that it twists him, and to let it. To cling to it so impossibly tightly that it implodes, collapses onto itself, and he is left with a Darkness that is Light in its essence, a Darkness that longs, paradoxically enough, to mend what is broken, to fix what is mistaken, to heal what is wounded - no matter the cost, no matter the price.

To bear the weight of the Galaxy on his shoulders, again, no matter what it will put him through. It's already too much. It cannot get worse anymore.

Perhaps he lied. He’s always been cruel. If only to himself. Perhaps he never should’ve stopped.

_The Council._

He is whispering names, he realizes, and he does not stop.

_Mace._

Names he’s scratched into the walls of his hideout.

_Kit._

Names that bleed into the ceiling, into the floor, into his skin.

_Ki-Adi-Mundi._

Names that he can’t forget.

_Plo._

Won’t forget.

_Eeth._

Names that bring him nightmares.

_Adi._

Names that bring him joy.

_Depa._

The viciously slaughtered, along with their families, their friends, their children. 

_Shaak._

No, never again. Never again can he stand by and watch it happen. Never again can he refuse the plea for the greater good, or even worse - to set out to seize it and then leave it for dead without making sure. If he is to be a Jedi, a Jedi that he’s fought so hard to be for as long as he can remember, a Jedi that the Galaxy detested so much during the War for his victories, for his provings that the Order was still capable, for his love for his comrades and his men, he’d better start acting like it now.

The Galaxy was right, in trying to wipe him off of it. He was going to make its life a living hell.

He brings his hands to his eyes. They come off dripping liquid gold.

It’s just the reflection of his eyes in the droplets of his tears.

He does not Fall as his oldest brother did - ( _Quinlan_.) - lovelorn and longing and shattering into a thousand regrets. He does not Fall as his sister's student did - ( _Barriss._ ) - horrified and unsure and yet already willing to wipe all in her way off the surface of time and space. He does not Fall as his ward did - ( _Anakin_.) - burning and screaming and severing all ties with that which made him human. 

His Remembrances conclude.

He Falls.

He Falls, but it feels more like finding his footing. It feels more like a natural part of stitching up a wound. It’s a gentle pressure all around him, almost like the arms of someone familiar enveloping him. It doesn’t feel like something terrible, something to be feared, _he_ doesn’t feel like someone to be feared. 

It’s always been him, the flame has always lived in him, the ability to heal with aching determination, the near-spiteful perseverance through the least likely of odds, the ferocious fight against time and opportunity. It comes onto him, fuller with each breath, angrier with each heartbeat, angry for all he wasn’t allowed to despair for, angry for every life lost and every heart broken, every dream shattered and every hope crushed.

Anger motivates so much more steadily than the continued yearning for something distant. He remembers once overhearing a crèchemaster, then, later his own soon-to-be Master, little did he know, speaking the same words - _The boy’s too volatile to be a Jedi. Too quick to anger. Too out of control_.

It had shattered him, and then given him the skill to build himself back up the way he wanted. If he learned one thing throughout his years, it was control. And, to the best of his ability to tell, he is still in control.

It’s just that the line has shifted. Significantly.

And yet he does not feel Dark. He feels almost as if he’s come closer to the Light instead, and he asks the Force why - is this not the worst that could have happened to him? Is this not the most vengeful fate, is this not the Evil, the Chaos, the Enemy?

 _Have you not answered that yourself?_ the Force asks him in turn. 

He reasons with this, and finds it true. He looks into the flame, and finds it beautiful. He looks into himself, and finds himself alive.

 _You have outlived him,_ the Force says, his every part assures, his every thought sings. Ben is a horrible kind of incredulity, born of a dark abyss without the promise of a bright dawn. And Obi-Wan is suffering without losing faith, taking action against futility and succeeding without a chance.

Whereas Ben is infinite sadness, Obi-Wan is endless hope.

 _You have outlived Ben,_ the Force tells him. _It is time, again, to face your path._

Following the will of the Force. That’s what it feels like. Of course the Force had it all laid out for him, whatever he chose.

But he had the sneaking suspicion, somehow, that this road was right. This road was his.

 _K'oyacyi_ 2, Luke, whose heart is as open in kindness as his mother's.

 _K'oyacyi_ , Leia, whose brave soul burns as bright as her father's.

 _K'oyacyi,_ Yoda, exiled into the depths of his own mind, waiting for a child and at the same time praying he never comes.

 _K'oyacyi_ , Cody, _Kote_ , who had never once failed him as a Commander and a friend of his own volition, lost in his own mind but not yet gone, not yet broken, never, he is going to make sure of it, once he finds him.

 _K'oyacyi_ , Ahsoka, somewhere out there, doing right by him, doing right by all of them, a beacon of cool Light in an otherwise boiling Galaxy. 

Obi-Wan stands up, and his cloak falls to the ground. He thinks, for a moment, that he sees his own reflection in the sand - and the gold in his eyes has not drowned out the blue; it only sharpened it, polished it, filled the aching cracks.

He smiles the smile of a man on the edge of a bottomless void, and he leaps over it.

 _Oh, dear._

He picks up the cloak and ties it around his waist. A few hours’ trip to Mos Eisley. 

_So much to do._

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. "Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc. Ni partayli, gar darasuum" - "I am alive, but you are dead. I remember you, therefore you are eternal." Mandalorian Remembrances, followed by the names of the deceased. Back to text  
> 2\. "Koyacyi" - Stay alive/Hang in there. Back to text
> 
> thank you so much for sticking until the end. i wrote this all in one go, any and all mistakes are mine. i hope you liked it! leave a comment if you'd like to tell me how i did? :>


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